The machines are against me.

Not in a Transformers Dark Side of the Moon* sort of against me.  There aren’t huge talking robot cars breaking into my house or anything.

It all began when the air conditioner at the school broke.  My classroom A/C worked just fine mind you.  But when the men in coveralls came to fix the school-wide A/C, mine stopped working.  Stopped working as in it was eighty-eight-lord-have-mercy-degress inside my classroom.  Dear ones, let me tell you that there isn’t a tougher crowd than 30 five and six-year olds who are too hot to move and/or think.  Due to the smoke from the fires blazing around us, we couldn’t even open a door or crack a window.  Teaching Sweating profusely for upwards of 10 hours a day and then driving home in a cauldron of smoke made me contemplate 2 things:

1. How hot can hell really be?
2. Am I in hell right now?

Truth be told, it also made me long for my days in Uganda writing with my sons and daughters in their beautiful open air classrooms that don’t need pesky things like air conditioners or for that matter, electricity.  It made me long to sit under the trees with them, looking out over the bush while they entranced me with their stories.

Once word got out that one of my machines had gone rogue, the others followed suit.  My router went on the fritz, taking my internet access and printer with it.  No amount of cajoling could bring the router back to life.  Believe me I tried.  I tried to fix it with the help of customer service agents from all over the world.  I was on the phone with customer service for 5 unholy hours which led to me saying very bad words and entertaining thoughts of taking the business end of a screwdriver to my router, which I may or may not have done while having a full on fit in my garage.

So while I would have loved to write about said ridiculous fit in detail here, the last thing I wanted to do after sweating through my clothes all day was vagabond myself out to free WiFi spots.  The only thing I wanted to do was come home and take an icy shower.  Trust me, sparing the public of my presence during those days was really an act of community service because let me tell you, the funk rising out of my skin was so strong it sometimes brought tears to my eyes when I happened to catch an errant whiff of myself.  There aren’t deodorants strong enough for that people, there just aren’t.

After the A/C, router and printer went on strike, my classroom projector and camera followed suit.  I swear it’s because they were melting in the heat.  My classroom A/C has now been out for 2 weeks.  Luckily for me I have a student teacher who climbs into the spiderwebby A/C closet every day and manually starts the thing up.  What better way for him to get a glimpse of the realities of teaching that to do that every morning, right?  Unfortunately once it’s on, it will not be stopped, so we’ve moved from the sweltering fires of Mordor to the frozen tundra of Antarctica.

But today, dear ones, is a turning point in The Great Machine Strike.  Perhaps they saw the damage I can do with a single screwdriver.  Perhaps their little metal innards were scarred by a full-grown woman melting down in all senses of the word.  Today two men in coveralls came and banged on things in the A/C closet outside of my classroom so I’m hopeful that tomorrow it will be humming away again.  Also a man with a jangling tool belt came and did things to the projector and it’s all bright and happy again.  I bought a new router that is speedy and quick and smiles at me with a pretty blue light.

The last hold out is the printer, but I think it knows I mean business because it’s beginning to perk back up and make clicking sounds and flash cheerful blinking lights at me like it wants to be friends again.  Just in case it needs a little more convincing, I left the screwdriver out in plain sight.

As soon as I heard the first pair of lyrics, I made a beeline inside where the dance was taking place. It was our song, our joke, and I knew Dan had requested it and would be scanning the dance floor for me.

I don’t remember how ‘Lady In Red’ became our song. I don’t recall either of us ever wearing red, or for that matter, acting like ladies. And trust me, that song was cheesy even when it was popular. I guess that’s what made it perfect because we, too, were pretty cheesy. I was a gangly teenager and he was a fatherly peace officer who often carried stickers in his pockets.

I caught a glimpse of Dan from behind and watched him for just a second as he looked for me. I tapped him on the shoulder, he turned and bowed, I curtsied and we both smiled at this ridiculous routine that had become tradition. As we danced, holding our chins high and our frames locked, for that song I was his daughter and he was my dad.

Over a wide span of years, we staffed many youth conferences together and at the requisite dance on the last night, one or the other of us would plead with the deejay to play our outdated, cheesy song. When the song came on, we left conversations mid-sentence and danced together, giggling like school kids at this ridiculous song that became the soundtrack of our friendship.

Throughout my high school years Dan I and I wrote letters back and forth, his always on colorful paper with stickers in the corners, of course. Dan’s letters always seemed to arrive just when I needed a fatherly presence in my life, when I needed someone to encourage me or to tell me that they were proud of me. Dan’s blocky handwriting spelled out belief in me. I’m lucky to have many father figures in my life who speak wisdom and kindness into the broken places I otherwise keep secret. Dan was one of them.

Dan died of cancer last week and although we hadn’t seen each other in years, the loss leaves a sad metallic taste in my mouth and a vacant space in my heart where he used to be.

After finding out about his passing, I tried to write something to honor him, but none of the words felt right in my mouth. None of the words felt adequate in describing a man who inhaled the pain of those around him and exhaled compassion.

When people die, the survivors are prone to exaggeration, our brains are prone to protect our hearts and only allow the good memories to surface. But the true testament of Dan’s character is that he was as beloved in life as he is in death.

As I sat trying to write about him, my fingers just wouldn’t type the words. And so I did what all writers do when paralyzed at the keyboard, I went grocery shopping. So there I was in the bread aisle pondering the difference between ‘whole grain’ and ‘whole wheat’ when ‘Lady In Red’ came over the loudspeakers. I turned my face toward the towers of loaves on the shelves and cried, wishing for one last dance with my old friend. A particular lyric caught like a sob in my throat.

I’ve never seen you shine so bright. You were amazing.

And then I laughed because that song, our song, our ridiculous joke broke my writer’s block and in that moment I knew just what to write to Dan, one last link in our chain of correspondence. When I got home, I shoved the bags of groceries into the fridge, not bothering to unpack them. I dug down deep into my special basket of kept notes and letters until I found Dan’s letters.

He spoke to me once again in the words he penned to me. And now at the close of his life I speak them back to him.

The community you live in is a better place because of you.

This is a better world because of you.

You are a treasure, unique, a natural at anything you do.

I’m very proud of you.

It’s been great because you were here.

You are where you should be.

You are a bright light for all of us on Earth.

You smiled upon us and spread your magic.

My wish was answered.

Cancer can take the body, but it can’t take the spirit or the memories we possess of our loved ones. It can’t erase Dan’s gracious words to me. Most of all it cannot wipe away my sweet memories of dancing with Dan.